


where in the world is yuuri katsuki?

by seventhstar



Series: bad people in good love [3]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, BAMF Katsuki Mari, Gangs, Investigations, Missing Persons, Multi, Organized Crime, Side Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 09:49:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12430236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhstar/pseuds/seventhstar
Summary: Through life as a gang leader and hook ups in hotel rooms, the unanswered questions remain in Mari's mind.Where is Yuuri? What happened to him?[This story pairs with Chapter 5 ofeven sinners have hearts]





	where in the world is yuuri katsuki?

**Author's Note:**

> First time writing about Mari; I hope I did her justice.

The most fucked up part is that she notices the _dog_ is gone first.

Mari comes home one sweltering afternoon to find Vicchan, the family poodle, has gone missing. She thinks nothing of it; he likes to hide in secret places in the inn. He’ll come out for dinner.

He doesn’t. So then she pokes around in dark corners and in cabinets. Nothing. No one will admit to having seen him. She checks every room with a slow dread in her belly.

She walks past Yuuri’s room three times without noticing the bed hasn’t been slept in and the closet is empty. Two months pass before she admits to herself what everyone else has already acknowledged: Vicchan is gone, probably forever. He was known as her dog; if he was found dead, whoever found him might have covered it up just to save their own ass.

Four months pass. One afternoon they need an extra room, so they pack up all Yuuri’s belongings and dump whatever can’t be reused or sold. They put the same furniture they have in all the other hotel rooms in that room, and guests start staying there. It’s in an inconvenient place, but business has been good lately, and it’s a place to stash the injured in a pinch, so they make do.

Her mother makes katsudon in late November.

“What’s the occasion?”

“It’s Yuuri’s birthday.”

“Yuuri?” Mari blinks, the name familiar, and then remembers: she has a _brother._ “Yuuri!”

Hiroko drops the bowl. It shatters into a thousand fragments on the floor, and for the first time, Mari sees her mother cry.

They look for him, with every resource they have. Most of the residents of Hasetsu remember him eventually, and together they piece together Yuuri’s last days. He was happy, they say. He was excited. He was being initiated.

No one can recall the name of the foreign gentleman Yuuri was supposed to kill; they can’t describe his face, or his voice, or what he was wearing. Mari can barely remember the color of his hair or his eyes. _Light,_ she thinks, _they were both light._

Others give up on the mystery of Yuuri.

But Mari can’t forget that she was the one who set Yuuri’s task for initiation.

 _She’s_ the one who didn’t protect him.

She keeps looking.

 

\+ + +

 

“Anything?”

Mari ignores Minako’s question and the cup sitting on the bar in favor of drinking sake directly from the jug.

“That good, huh?” Minako downs her glass of liquor. “How’s the bootleg thing coming along?”

The Foxes make their money by discreetly smuggling and distributing foreign commodities nowadays. Right now it’s knock-off toys; next week it might be drugs.

“You’ll be able to afford that Ferrari.”

“I’ll look pretty stupid driving a Ferrari around here.”

“Ha.” Mari laughs at that mental image—Minako in a shiny red convertible, zooming around the narrow streets of Hasetsu past the convenience store and the ‘abandoned’ ice rink. (They use it as a warehouse now; the kids get to skate while the adults do the work downstairs. Everyone wins.)

“Your dad came by yesterday. Wanted to know...how it was going.” Minako pauses. _“If_ it was going.”

“It’s fine.”

“Is it?”

“Someone has to know,” Mari says tightly. “And when I find them, they’ll talk.”

“Maybe.”

They both drink in silence. Mari watches Minako’s expression twist; she can tell what she’s about to hear is bad. She can guess what it is.

Everyone’s said it to her, sooner or later—everyone but her parents.

“It’s been five years.”

“I know how long it’s been.”

“He’s probably dead. You know that, don’t you?”

“Then we avenge him.”

“If we were going to find something—”

“I’m going to keep looking. With your help or without it. I’m not abandoning him.”

“It’s not your fault he died.”

“He’s _not_ dead!” Mari slams the jug down onto the table. It cracks. She takes a deep breath. “We never found a body. His clothes were missing. Someone erased our memories. It doesn’t make sense for him to be dead.”

“Mari,” Minako says. Her voice is gentle. That’s a thousand times worse than if she would scream or yell. Mari was the kind of student who needed to be whipped into shape. Gentleness was for Yuuri alone.

“Never mind.” Mari swallows heavily, and squashes it all down. “Talk to me about your Russian contact.”

“Well, he’s got this bright idea about importing battery packs…”

 

\+ + +

 

Isabella Yang is Mari’s only big-time international contact.

(Contact is a very businesslike way of saying they occasionally hook up and then lie around shooting the shit in the aftermath.)

Yang and Mari aren’t in business together, which is why Mari feels comfortable sleeping with her. There’s no entanglements. No bleed over from real life. Every once in a while, they’re in the same city, and Mari breaks into Isabella’s hotel room and takes the night off.

Tonight they’re in Tokyo. Mari slips into a bellboy uniform and pulls the hat low over her face; with her hair tucked underneath and all her piercings out, she could pass for a man. She bypasses the elevator in favor of the fire stairs; there’s no one in the stairwell, and she reaches Yang’s floor unimpeded.

She keeps her face turned away from the cameras and holds out her armful of linens until she reaches Yang’s door.

“Room service.”

The door opens to reveal JJ, Yang’s boytoy. He makes surprisingly good music, even if he has terrible taste in tattoos. He recognizes her, and steps out of the way to let her in.

Yang is sitting by the window, on a bench, her back to Mari. She’s wearing the bottom half of her suit--only the bottom half of her suit.

“Yo,” she says.

Yang turns to look at her. “Katsuki.”

“Is there beer?”

JJ tosses her a can. It’s expensive beer, Mari notes, not that her tastebuds can tell the difference. She drinks like a Katsuki—in great quantities, without discrimination. She pops it open and takes a gulp.

It’s not bad. She keeps drinking it as she sits down on Yang’s bed. No asking for permission, no sitting daintily at the edge of the bed, either. Mari slouches, leans back, looks unimpressed.

She wears her street punk stupidity the way Yang wears her red lipsticks and pencil skirts. It’s always better to be underestimated in some way. Always better not to be caught before she starts swinging. Maybe that’s why she likes Yang--because under the pressed suits and the icy smile, Yang fucks one man boy band JJ and arranges clandestine threesomes with Japanese gang leaders. They’re just alike enough.

“It’s a nice night,” Isabella says. She puts a hand on the glass. Mari can see her breasts reflected in the glass; only the faint flush on Isabella’s chest gives her away. Her red lipstick is just this side of smudged. “Don’t you think?”

“It could be.”

Mari glances around and notes the leather harness peeking out of an open suitcase, the way JJ paces, too keyed up to sit, the way Isabella is smirking in the glass. She’s younger than Mari, it’s true, but she makes up for it in confidence.

It’s been a hell of a week for Mari, between the bootleg anime merchandise and the shoot out and Minako’s too-understanding look. She drinks the rest of the beer and drops the can on the floor along with all her responsibilities.

She’ll pick them up before she goes.

 

\+ + +

 

Three am.

The soundproofing in the hotel is excellent; Mari can’t hear the city outside at all. JJ is snoring on Isabella’s left; he’s exhausted, despite Mari and Isabella doing all the work. God, but that boy can take it, even if he’s not great for anything afterwards. To Isabella’s right, Mari is brooding. She should be working, she knows, even though the Foxes won’t fall apart if she takes one night off. It’s not _them_ that need her right now; it’s Mari who craves a distraction.

She doesn’t want to be alone with her thoughts, because, inevitably—

_“It’s not your fault he died.”_

It is Mari’s fault. She’s come to terms with it a long time ago That’s not why she’s doing this, why she keeps making brief international trips, why she keeps buying tabloids and pseudoscience journals about telepaths, why she keeps looking when the trail is long gone.

She just has to know. Is Yuuri alive, or dead? Was he kidnapped, or did he go willingly? Did he know he was going to be erased from the memories of his friends and family? Did he care?

Who would want to make her brother--her deceptively quiet, stubborn little brother—disappear?

Minako has a point, though. Five years is a long time.

Maybe she should stop.

There’s so much more she could do at home, after all. Improvement projects for Hasetsu. Money laundering, so that she can start converting her ill-gotten cash into a retirement fund and legitimate investments. Renovate the inn. Maybe buy Minako that Ferrari, just for the hell of it.

 _Mom and Dad will understand,_ she thinks.

Exhaustion rolls over her. She has a train ticket for the morning; she closes her eyes.

“Katsuki.”

“Yang.”

“I want to hire you.”

“Hire me?”

That’s not how this is supposed to go. Despite herself, Mari is intrigued.

“Yes.”

“To do what?”

Yang rolls over in bed and hands her a photograph. The quality isn’t great; the angle is odd. It’s off two men, standing on a sidewalk, arm in arm. One of them is tall, with light, silvery hair; the other has blue-rimmed glasses and messy dark hair and her brother’s face.

“Who are they?”

“Thieves.”

Mari doesn’t swallow, or blink. She keeps her voice bored as she asks, “What’s the job, Yang. And cut the vague bullshit. Why me?”

“Insurance.”

“What?”

“I need someone who isn’t already involved. You’re not getting any more than that. I’ll pay you well.”

“How well?”

“Seven figures. And I’ll owe you a favor.”

A favor from Yang is a big fucking deal. Yang is the kind of precise woman who likes to know exactly what she owes and is owed. For her to offer Mari a blanket check like that, without restrictions, she must really need Mari’s help.

“What would I be doing?”

“I need someone to stay out of sight and follow them as necessary.”

“That’s it?”

“No. But that’s all you need to know.”

“Eight figures.”

“...fine.”

“And I can’t be gone longer than a week.”

“I’ll make sure you get home on time.”

“I’ll do it,” Mari says, casually, like Yang hasn’t just upended her, like Yuuri’s face in the photo isn’t burning a hole in her mind. Yuuri, alive. The light-haired man of Mari’s nightmares beside him. Answers, at last.

She wonders if Yang knows who Yuuri is. She wonders if Yuuri knows who Yuuri is. She wonders if, when this is all over, she’ll regret not giving up a long time ago. This feels like a trap, and yet…Yuuri is her brother.

Then she sets all that aside. The future will be what it is.

All she can do is wait, and plan, and hope.

 _Hold on a little longer, Mom, Dad,_ she thinks. One way or another, this is the last time.

**Author's Note:**

> comment...it's the only way


End file.
